


A Name

by sycamie



Category: Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: F/M, Lacewoodshipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sycamie/pseuds/sycamie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the fall of Team Flare and Serena's successful Pokemon League run, she returns to Kalos to make a name for herself in the field of pokemon research.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

               Rain pattered against the front window of one of Lumiose City’s numerous cafes, a dreary gray sky the source of the day’s unfortunate weather.  Serena found herself blankly gazing out at the street before the sound of her laptop’s low battery warning snapped her attention back to the work before her.  Apparently she had been at the small cafe for longer than she had planned. 

               It had been three years since she had become Champion of the Kalos region.  While she had been managing her duties as Champion well enough, Serena had been taking an increasingly academic interest in pokemon.  She had initially started assisting Professor Sycamore with his research on Mega evolution by acting as a field liaison of sorts, regularly sharing her Pokedex with him and reporting back any findings she thought would be relevant to his work.  Eventually she had found herself fulfilling requests from other pokemon professors and began to work closely with some of them.  Professor Elm of the Johto region regularly asked for Serena’s assistance in providing pokemon from the Kalos region for his breeding studies, and on a trip to Unova she had become highly interested in Professor Juniper’s work on the origin of pokemon.  Serena had actually spent the last year in Unova as Professor Juniper’s research assistant while beginning her own research project on pokemon taxonomy.  It was that project that had brought her back to Kalos. 

               The 20th Annual Pokemon Researchers Symposium wasn’t for another two days, but academics and students alike had already begun to flock to Lumiose City in anticipation of what the conference had to offer.  Initially Serena had only planned on presenting a poster that summarized her research, as was the norm with research assistants, but Professor Juniper had pushed for her to give a formal presentation instead.  This would be her first official appearance in the world of academia, and she was more than a little nervous at the thought of speaking in front of hundreds of people.  She had been at the café for the past half hour, silently pouring over her presentation for the umpteenth time while waiting to meet up with a particular old friend of hers.

 _He should have been here by now,_ Serena thought. _I’ve been waiting here for –_ she checked her watch - _…thirty five minutes.  Maybe the weather’s holding him up?_   A jingle at the door signaled the entrance of a new patron, and Serena twisted her head around to see an older woman in a pink jacket shaking the rain off of her umbrella while holding the door open for a very drowned-looking Furfrou.  _Figures_ , Serena grumbled, looking back at her computer and settling in for another round through her slides.

               “Ah, merci,” a male voice said as the door’s bell jingled again to signal the closing of the door.  Serena had failed to notice the tall, dark-haired man in a black overcoat who had slipped into the café behind the woman and her pokemon.  A few seconds later, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and turned to find herself face to face with Professor Augustine Sycamore.   “Oh!” Serena interjected in surprise, shoving her laptop onto the table in front of her and leaping to her feet to face the professor.

               “Serena!  It is so good to see you, ma chère!” Professor Sycamore beamed.  In a flash of movement, he placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on both cheeks in the typical Kalosian fashion.  The delicate scent of his aftershave lingered for a moment after he pulled away.  “My sincere apologies for being so late.  There was a matter at the lab that kept me.”

               “That’s all right.  It’s good to see you too, Professor.”  Serena’s eyes darted to the floor as memories from the beginning of her pokemon journey resurfaced.  She had been enamored with the young, handsome professor from the day he had given her her first pokemon.  There was no doubt that she had risen to become Kalos’s youngest Champion because of her incredible talent as a trainer, but her desire to impress the professor had been a very large – if publicly unknown – factor in her success.  Part of the reason why she had distanced herself from Kalos was that she couldn’t quite shake her feelings of admiration for the man while she was near him.

               Professor Sycamore snaked around the side of the couch that Serena had parked herself on for the past half hour, his eyes going to the screen of her laptop as he sat down.  “So what’s this you’re working on?  Your speech for the symposium?”

               “Yes,” she said dejectedly as she took her seat beside him.  “I’ve been going over it in my head since I got on my flight from Unova, and every time I practice what I’m going to say for a slide, it turns out different than what I planned before.”

               “Ah, well – that’s usually a good thing!  It means you’re not reading off of your slides.”  He smiled warmly at her.  “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

               She smiled coyly back at him, the joy from seeing her old friend beginning to instill some confidence in her.  “Says the keynote speaker.  I saw your name in the advance copies of the program.”  His mouth widened into a sheepish grin.  “Being billed above Professor Oak?” she continued, “that’s a pretty big role to fill.”

               He chuckled.  “You know I wasn’t the first choice for that speech.  Oak was offered it first, but he declined, saying something about how he wanted to step aside and make room for some new blood in the field.  Can you imagine?”

               “Really?  Well, I’m sure _you’ll_ do fine, Professor!”

               “Haha, yes.”  His smile softened as some of the excitement dropped out of his voice.  “You know, Serena… You’re the Champion of Kalos and well on your way to becoming a professor yourself.”  Serena twisted her mouth to the side in a mild display of confusion.  “We’re becoming colleagues, you and I.  What I mean to say is…  Call me Augustine, if you please.”

               Serena blinked and took a second to process the Professor’s request.  “Uh, okay.  If you insist!  …Augustine,” she clumsily tacked onto the end of her sentence.  He smiled again, amused by the effort.  A few seconds passed before either of them spoke.  “So…” the professor began, directing his gaze toward her laptop, “I have not had the privilege of seeing the program yet.  What are you presenting on?” 

               “Oh, let me show you!”  Serena pulled the computer onto her lap again and arrowed through a few of her slides to show the title slide of her presentation:  "Pokemon Taxonomy – Mixed Paternal Lineage and Its Role in Behavioral Inheritance.”

               “It’s something I started thinking about when I started working with Professor Elm,” Serena explained.  “When pokemon breed, the babies always start out at the bottom of the evolutionary chain of the mother.  But the possible paternal lineage can vary wildly for some species, and sometimes the babies are able to perform moves that they wouldn’t normally know until more advanced evolutionary stages.”  The professor nodded in understanding.  “Sometimes these moves are something that a purebred pokemon of the same type wouldn’t be able to learn at all, and we only observe it in pokemon with mixed parental lineages.   It’s been known of in trainer circles for quite a while, but all the information that’s out there is kind of fragmented and isolated.  A lot of competitive trainers aren’t willing to give away the secret to their pokemons’ movesets, so no one’s really tried to gather all of that information in one place before.”  Serena flipped through the slides in her presentation, trying to find a specific one.  “I have something here about-“  Her computer angrily beeped and the screen went black, battery depleted.

               “Ugh, really?” she huffed.  “Sorry Professor.  I would show you, but it looks like my laptop’s about dead.  I forgot my charger back in my hotel room.”  She paused for a second, remembering the Professor’s request. “Um, I mean Augustine.”

               He smiled, hand on his chin, gazing at the empty laptop screen for a moment more before turning to look at Serena.  “Now that is a shame,” the professor mused.  “It looks like my tardiness has deprived me of a very interesting conversation.”

               Serena could feel some heat surfacing in her cheeks.  “Well, um, if you’re free during the symposium, you could always come to my talk.”  She cast her eyes downward and balled her fists, frustrated with herself for her lack of foresight.  She would have liked to get his take on the presentation before going up in front of all those people.  Professor Sycamore was a very good public speaker.

               The Professor glanced at his watch and looked back up at Serena.  “I’ll tell you what, ma chère.  I’ve been running behind all day with all the ridiculous preparations for the symposium, and I’ve actually got to meet with one of the event organizers in about twenty minutes.  Perhaps we could continue this conversation a bit later this evening.   There’s a lovely new restaurant on Hibernal Avenue, been giving Le Wow a hell of a time-”

               Serena straightened her back at the mention of a restaurant.  “You mean… over dinner?” she blurted out. The Professor laughed.  “Yes, I suppose that’s what I was meaning to say.  Over dinner.”

               Serena’s mouth thinned into an anxious line.  “Well…  I’ll have to check with Professor Juniper – she has our itinerary and I’m not sure what we have budgeted for meals just yet-“  The Professor smiled and put a hand gently on Serena’s shoulder.  “Serena, you misunderstand me.  It’ll be my treat.”

               “Oh.  Okay.”

               He chuckled and withdrew his hand.  “I’m sorry, ma chère.  I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.  If you and Professor Juniper have other plans for the night, I don’t want to intrude.  She is welcome to come as well if you would prefer her to.  Far be it from me to monopolize you on your first night back in Kalos.”

               “No!  I mean, I’m sure it’ll be fine.  I’ll… I’ll call you on the Holocaster once I get back to the hotel, okay?” Serena spurted as she packed up her things.  She snapped the front of her bag shut and turned to the Professor with a sheepish little smile.  “…I would really like to come.”

               “All right.  I should be finishing up tonight at about eight o’clock, so any time after that should be fine.”  Professor Sycamore stood up and straightened the collar of his coat.  He leaned down and gave Serena another quick peck on both of her cheeks before turning to leave.  “I’ll be waiting for your call, yeah?  Take care, ma chère!”  A jingle at the door and the fwip of an opening umbrella announced his departure.

               Serena sat in silence with her bag on her lap for some time after that, staring blankly forward at the wall. 

 _He kissed me and asked me out to dinner,_ she gulped.  _That’s…  that’s certainly a start._


	2. Chapter 2

                Professor Aurea Juniper turned from the mirror at the mention of Sycamore’s name, hands still busy affixing one of her trademark red earrings to her ear.  “Augustine invited you to dinner?”

                “Well, the invitation was actually for both of us,” Serena said quickly, still somewhat out of breath from her mad dash up the stairs of Hotel Richissime.  On her way back to the hotel she had started walking faster and faster the more she thought of dinner with the Professor.  By the time she had arrived at the hotel lobby, her bee-line for the stairs had nearly toppled a luggage cart, an elderly couple and their Skitty, and a repairman who seemed to be in dire need of some extra arms for all the toolboxes he was carrying.

                Professor Juniper smiled knowingly and turned back towards the mirror.  “I appreciate the invitation, but something tells me that you’d be happier catching up without me.”

                “Well, uh, it would be nice… to… catch up on all the things about Kalos I’ve missed.”

                “Just be careful, dear.  Go and have yourself some fun, but remember we’ve got preparations for the conference early tomorrow morning.”  Professor Juniper slid the other earring on her opposite ear and twisted her head back towards Serena with a small grin.  “As a matter of fact, I’ve been invited to a small mixer this evening for most of the pokemon professors who are going to be attending the conference.  I suppose this means Sycamore isn’t coming.”

                Serena looked down, feeling a bit of heat rise to her face.  “I didn’t know that.  About the mixer, I mean.”  She paused for a moment.  “T-thanks, Professor.”

                “Don’t worry about it, sweetie.”

 

* * *

 

                Serena hadn’t packed any clothes she felt would be good dinnerwear, having tossed only a few changes of casual clothes for traveling days into her suitcase along with several suits and blouses to use during the conference.  Professor Juniper had left shortly after their conversation, so Serena was left to her own devices in the hotel room while she tried to get ready.  She had spent the past twenty minutes trying to figure out how Professor Juniper managed to pin her hair in such seemingly effortless updos, and failing miserably.  Serena sighed and pulled the loosely knitted beret that she had been wearing before back onto her head.  “Maybe a lifetime of hat wearing has screwed me over in that department,” she mused to herself.

                A quick glance at the clock showed that it was already a quarter past eight.  _Oh my god!  I’ve got to get going!_   Serena jumped up from her seat at the vanity and hurriedly shoved her laptop and a few other goods into her bag.  She left the room still juggling her Holocaster and laptop charger, door clicking shut behind her as she tried to find a last bit of room in her monstrously overstuffed shoulder bag.

                Serena and Professor Juniper’s hotel room was a quick jaunt down the hall from the elevator. Serena was still fiddling with her bag when she nearly tripped over a small form huddled against the wall adjacent to the elevator.  “Oh!  Sorry!” she gasped in apology, “I really didn’t see you there!”

                A pair of violet eyes framed by dark hair swiveled up towards Serena.  The girl’s waifish build was buried under the layers of a voluminous gray dress, her knees tucked up to her chest.  “They changed the elevators,” she stated flatly.

                _Uh. Okay?_

                “I don’t like it.”  The girl broke eye contact with Serena and pressed her ear against the wall.

                Serena reached out above the girl’s head and gingerly pressed the elevator call button.  “Well, uh, some of these elevators were out of service when we got here last night.  I think I saw a maintenance guy downstairs who probably fixed them…?”

                The girl stared vacantly up at Serena, ear still affixed to the wall.

                “Well, um… yeah…” Serena trailed off.  The sudden ding of the call bell saved her from any further awkward attempts at making conversation, and she stepped on the elevator.  Several other hotel patrons were already on their way down.

                Serena shifted her weight to one leg and craned her neck to see past a tall man who was blocking the button panel.  “Ground floor?” she asked, hoping her button was already pressed.

                “Ah, sure, let me—“ The elevator made an unexpected jolt downward, pausing only for a split second before rocketing down again as the lights flickered overhead.  A woman shrieked as Serena found herself suddenly crumpled on the floor, a sharp pain searing through the side of her forehead.  The elevator continued downward in what seemed like freefall for a few more seconds before jerking to a stop at the bottom floor.  Serena looked up to see a woman, white-faced and white-knuckled, clinging to the support bar as the man from before leaned down to help her.  “Oh my god, are you okay?” he asked, gesturing to her head.

                 “I… um, wow.  What just happened?”  Serena mumbled as she sat up.  She heard a sickening crunch beneath her and realized with horror that her bag had taken the brunt of her fall.  “ _Oh no_!—“

                The doors to the elevator slid open and the white-knuckled woman practically leaped over Serena to get out into the lobby.  “WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!” she shrieked in the direction of the front desk.  “Your stupid elevator just nearly _KILLED ME_!”

 

* * *

 

                Several minutes later, Serena found herself seated on a couch in the lobby with an ice pack pressed against her head.  Nervous hotel staff flitted around her.   One of them pressed a glass of water into her free hand and repeated that, yes, the paramedics should be here any minute to check on you, and no, you shouldn’t leave until they get here, it would be _plus terrible_ if you developed a concussion.  The casualties of Serena’s fall had been numerous:  her laptop screen (her elbow had landed squarely on top of her closed laptop), a rogue bottle of liquid foundation at the bottom of her bag that had shattered and spilled its contents everywhere, and her Holocaster, which was not only in pieces but additionally had makeup splattered over most of it.

                It took more than a half hour for the paramedics and hotel staff to be satisfied before they let Serena go.  She had borrowed a spare Holocaster from the front desk and was frantically trying to search for Professor Sycamore’s contact information, but all she could find was the general number for his research lab.  Her attempts to call him had been met with a smiling hologram of the Professor stating that he and his lab techs were unavailable to answer the Holocaster at this time.  _If only I had called him before I got on the elevator, or gotten the name of the restaurant ahead of time, or **something** …_  Serena sighed and looked wistfully over at her dented laptop.  Her most recent copy of her presentation was on there, and she wasn’t sure whether or not it would be salvageable from the damaged computer.  She pulled it onto her lap and opened the lid of the computer to be greeted by a big, spidery crack radiating out from the center of the screen.  _I better see if I have a backed up version of this on Professor Juniper’s servers,_ she thought gloomily.

                Serena took the stairs back up to her room.

 

* * *

 

               Across the city, Professor Sycamore flipped through the last pages of a novel and gently set it down on the arm of his sofa.  He removed his glasses, recently forced upon him by several of his lab techs who had noticed he got headaches whenever he read in long spurts, and looked across the room to some glowing numbers in the darkness. 

_12:45, huh.  Looks like you got stood up, mon ami._


	3. Chapter 3

               Serena was unable to salvage the presentation from her computer with the limited resources she had at the hotel, but an older copy of the file was available on Professor Juniper’s lab servers.  Professor Juniper had given the hotel absolute hell once she returned, and in return they had promised to replace all of Serena’s broken belongings and discount their stay for the remainder of the conference.  The Professor, once adamant that Serena be up early to help with the preparations for the day, now firmly insisted that she stay in the hotel room to catch up on her rest and update her presentation on a borrowed tablet.  “I’m not letting you slack off,” the Professor had said with an intense look, “I fully expect that presentation to be bigger and better than ever when I get back!”

 _Slave driver_ , Serena chuckled to herself while adjusting the pillow behind her back.  “Understood, ma’am.  By the way…  If you see Professor Sycamore today, could you tell him what happened last night?  I haven’t been able to reach him on the Holocaster.”

               “I will if I see him, dear.  For now… _get to work_!”   Playfulness flashed in the Professor’s eyes at her last jibe, but Serena knew that it was only half a joke.  It was going to be a long day.

 

* * *

 

                The following morning, Serena got up early to shower and don her suit for the first day of the conference.  She and Professor Juniper arrived at the convention center armed with the day’s programs and all of the handheld technology they could muster.  The Lumiose Greater Convention Center, a new addition to the city since Serena had been there, and was nestled on the North Boulevard between some office buildings and the gate to Route 14.  Expansive glass windows rose up from the lowest level to angle over and form a partial sunroof over the central atrium of the building, and mosaics of famous Lumiosians danced over the glittering floor.  _They really outdid themselves on this place,_ Serena thought as she passed through the main doorway.

                Professor Juniper lead them to a large ballroom where several hundred people had already gathered.  “Just as well we get our seats now,” she said.  “Believe it or not, this hall probably won’t hold all the people who are attending once they get the ball rolling.”  The two women managed to find seats near the front center of the room, about a dozen rows back from the main lectern.  Serena contented herself with watching people fill the room, occasionally picking out acquaintances of hers and the Professor’s from within the steadily growing crowd.  Just as Professor Juniper had predicted, the seemingly endless rows of seats reached maximum capacity shortly before the opening ceremony was scheduled to begin.  The late arrivals stood awkwardly in the aisles at either side of the room, some visibly perturbed at the prospect of standing during the entire set of the morning’s speeches.

                The lights dimmed slightly and the murmuring of the crowd responded accordingly, as hundreds of pairs of eyes were directed to the lectern at the front of the room.

                “Ladies and gentlemen of all nations!” a bright voice rang out from the speakers around the room.  “The City of Lumiose would like to welcome you to the Twentieth Annual Pokemon Researchers Symposium!”  A petite woman with closely cropped brown hair stepped up to the lectern and a wave of applause rippled throughout the audience.

                _Diantha?_   Serena craned her neck upwards in an attempt to get a better look at the speaker.

                “We certainly have a memorable weekend planned for you in the coming days of this conference.  Young and old, veterans and novices, we hope that that you leave this symposium further enriched and energized to continue your studies of pokemon!”  The speaker flashed a smile and made a small bow with an elegant hand flourish.  _Yep, definitely Diantha_ , Serena smiled to herself. 

“I have the honor of introducing today’s keynote speaker and dear friend of mine, Professor Augustine Sycamore.  To try and list everything that Professor Sycamore has contributed to the profession of pokemon research would certainly take too long for the time we have allotted, so we will have to suffice with the basics.”  She shot a quick smile to the side of the stage, presumably where Professor Sycamore was waiting.  Diantha spent the next few minutes reviewing the Professor’s academic pedigree with flair, dropping in a tasteful quip at his expense every now and then to loosen up the audience.

                “…and that brings us up to the Professor’s current research, which he is more than willing to share with you in just a moment.  Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Professor Augustine Sycamore!”  Applause erupted from the audience as the Professor gracefully strode onstage.  Serena felt a pang of embarrassment when she realized how cognizant she was of how he was dressed:  a smartly tailored charcoal suit accentuated the elegant slope of his shoulders, while the slate blue ascot around his neck brought out the color of his eyes.

                The Professor took his place at the microphone, placing his hands on the lectern and leaning forward as if he had a secret to share with the audience.  “Diantha,” he said chidingly as the former Champion left the stage, “I think you’ve given me quite a reputation to live up to.” A swell of chuckles rose from the audience as the Professor swept his gaze across the room.

                _Did he just look at me?_   Serena felt as though he had made eye contact with her for a fraction of a second, but she wasn’t sure.  She offered up a smile and a small wave as he looked back across the audience, but the Professor showed no signs of having seen her.

                The Professor’s speech lasted for over forty minutes, but he kept the audience engaged during every one of them.  Serena noted with amusement that when Professor Sycamore got excited, he still spoke with the same exaggerated mannerisms that she had become familiar with during her Pokemon League run.  His sentences were punctuated with hands waving wildly in the air; sudden, dramatic pauses; and even echoing stomps on the ground.  Several times she felt his eyes pass over her, but his face offered no signs of recognition.  A niggling feeling crept into her stomach in stages.  _I’m probably just imagining things.  Why would he be thinking about anything other than delivering this speech right now?_   When the Professor’s speech came to an end, a round of applause erupted from the audience.  Several notable members of the community stood up almost immediately to applaud – Professor Oak and Professor Rowan, for one – and the rest of the audience followed suit.  The remainder of the morning’s speeches was dreadfully bland in comparison.

                Serena’s turn to present came immediately after lunch, during the first round of the poster presentation sessions.  She swallowed the last bit of her sandwich and stared wistfully out at the rows of easels in the atrium, wishing that she could have simply thrown a laminated poster up on one and answered the questions of anyone who happened to stop by.  _Well, I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be_ , she remarked to herself as she stood up and ducked into the grand ballroom.

                Unlike the morning’s speeches, Serena’s presentation was one of several options available to the attendees, which thankfully meant that the ballroom was significantly less populated than it had been previously.  Still, it appeared that her reputation as the Champion of Kalos turned research assistant had brought more than a few interested parties.  A quick scan of the audience showed no sign of the wavy mess of dark hair she had hoped to see.  Professor Juniper had taken a seat near the far corner of the room.  She shot Serena an encouraging smile and a thumbs up as Serena ascended to the lectern.

                _You had hundreds of people watch you while you competed in the League,_ she sternly told herself as she placed her hands on the lectern.  _And thousands attended that parade for you after the Geosenge Incident._   But up on stage, raised up with hundreds of eyes peering at her and the bright lights of the stage limiting her vision, Serena was without her beloved friends and pokemon.  She had never felt so acutely alone.

                “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming!”  Serena wore the most enthusiastic smile she could muster.  “For the past year Professor Juniper has taken me under her care and worked with me to further my own academic pursuits.  This project has been very demanding both in and out of the lab, and I believe it has great implications for the future of pokemon breeding, service, and competitive battling.”

                Despite a shaky start, Serena quickly adapted and actually felt somewhat comfortable after the first few minutes of her speech.  She had turned her back to the audience, using a laser pointer to explain one of her figures on the large screen behind her, when the _tak tak tak_ of footsteps on the hard floor caught her ear.  She turned and saw the figure of Professor Sycamore gliding up on of the central aisles.  He strode up past the other occupants of the hall, past the fifth row, fourth row, third, second… oh god, he had seated himself in the otherwise vacant first row.  The _center_ of the front row.  A stony expression masked his face as he leaned forward to look up at Serena, fingers interlaced in front of his mouth.  Why was he here now?  What was he doing?

                “A-as you can see,” Serena stammered as she tore her eyes away from the Professor, “our initial leads came from a variety of sources.  Individual trainers, pokemon breeding circles, some older literature… we even found mention of an egg move in a ladies’ magazine from 80 years ago.”  A furtive glance back at the audience found the Professor in the same state as before:  leaning forward, hands supporting his chin, eyes fixed on Serena in an intense, unblinking stare.  “…of course, this was only a starting point for our own, uh, investigations.  We arranged with several breeders to obtain… ah, stock, which we then… um…”  Serena was now keeping her back deliberately turned to the audience.  She felt as though the professor’s eyes were boring holes into the back of her skull.

                The remainder of the presentation was excruciating.  Serena had remained behind the safety of the lectern, back rigidly facing the audience for much of her remaining time on stage.  Her slides, filled mostly with graphs and figures to prevent her from simply reading off the text on them, had given her pause numerous times as she struggled to remember what she wanted to say about them.  When she had reached the end of her presentation and opened the floor for questions, the room sat in an uncomfortable silence for what seemed like an eternity before an awkward smattering of applause signaled that no one wanted to discuss her work.

                The lights in the room brightened and the audience began to stand up and amble towards the exits.  The Professor straightened his back and silently rose from his seat, jamming his hands in his suit pockets as he joined the rest of the crowd.  Serena had to race down from the stage to catch an obviously enraged Professor Juniper by the arm before she charged after Professor Sycamore.

                “That greasy Kalosian _bastard_ ,” Juniper growled through clenched teeth, “Who the _HELL_ does he think he is marching in here like that during our presentation?”

                Serena could feel a cold rage building up in the pit of her stomach.  She tightened her grasp on incensed woman’s arm.  “Professor.”  All of the nervous energy that had paralyzed her seconds before had vaporized as soon as she left the hot lights of the stage.  She spoke slowly and deliberately.  “Professor.  Let me handle this.”  Without waiting for affirmation, Serena spun on her heels and took off after the man who had made a very deliberate effort to ruin her speech.

                Professor Sycamore had quickened his pace once he had exited into the atrium, and it was the loud _tak tak tak_ of his dress shoes on the floor that alerted Serena to his route of escape.  She marched up alongside him, catching his wrist in a vice grip as they matched speed through the thinning crowd of people.

                “What the _hell_ was that?!” Serena hissed angrily into his ear.

                “I came by to see your presentation,” he said flatly, looking straight forward.

                “You _did not_ ,” she spat as she caught the eyes of several gawking attendees, “just _come by_ to see my presentation.”

                He halted abruptly and turned to face Serena, his mouth a hard line.  “Serena.  If you cannot handle a surprise or two thrown at you during your work, perhaps you picked the wrong field of study.”

                The muscles in her free hand twitched.  No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to slap the keynote speaker on the first day of the symposium.  …At least not with this many onlookers. 

               “You and I,” she stated, quiet anger apparent in her voice, “need to have a talk.”  She yanked on his arm, stalking off towards the nearest corridor under the stares of a large portion of the crowd.   They snaked through the hallways in silence until she found a vacant room.  Dragging the professor in with her, she released his wrist and slammed the door behind them.


	4. Chapter 4

               Once Serena realized that she had the Professor alone, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him.  He crossed his arms and glowered down at the floor, slapping his back against the wall with a small _harrumph_.  It took a second for Serena to collect her thoughts before she spoke.

               “Do you realize that you not only made me look like a fool, but Professor Juniper as well?  She pushed _big time_ to get me on that program, and you just waltz in and give me the evil eye until I’m all but literally falling over myself?”

               The Professor smirked, eyes still cast down at the floor.  “Oh, no no no, Serena.”  He flicked his dark gaze up at her.  “Let’s not talk about who made whom look bad.  After all, you weren’t the _only professor missing_ from the little soirée that went on the night before last.”

               She stared at him incredulously, brows furrowed.  “You’re mad at me because… you missed a _party?”_

               “Of course I would not be that petty, ma chère.”  He contemptuously spat out the term of endearment, and Serena felt herself tense.  “I would grant you my missing the party, and leaving me waiting on your call until the wee hours of the morning.  I would even grant you not answering my calls the following day, but the true insult?  Showing up yesterday morning with all of my esteemed colleagues smiling at me knowingly, as if they knew some grand secret about me.  It appears as though your Professor Juniper gladly informed everyone as to the nature of my absence, or at least she was willing to volunteer that information after partaking in some of the night’s refreshments.”

               Serena’s cheeks reddened as the meaning of the Professor’s words sank in.  He continued.

               “You see, I have been branded with somewhat of an ill reputation when it comes to the fairer sex.  I have worked hard – _very hard_ – to keep my personal life out of the public view, and this little debacle has blown it wide open again.  It is unfortunate your speech went poorly, but when it comes down to who had the greater blow to their image, I’m afraid you are not the winner.  And now I’m sure they are talking about us even at this very moment.  I’m honestly not quite sure why I let you drag me here in the first place.”

               Serena had to make an active effort to unclench her jaw before she could speak.  “So.  Let me get this straight.  You’re mad… because somehow it got out that you’re some kind of _ladies’ man_?” 

               The Professor remained silent.

               “And then because you’re mad about rumors involving you and I being passed around, you come to my talk – **_my_** _talk_ – and glare at me the entire time like a _petulant child_?”  The anger in Serena’s voice bubbled over, her voice cracking at the last word.  “Okay, you know what?  Forget it.  I don’t care if I understand what your reason is.  I have a broken laptop and Holocaster on my side.  Oh, and _head trauma_.  I win.  End of pissing match.”  The Professor’s scowl softened slightly at the mention of her injury.

               “You… what?”

               “If I knew you ever bothered checking the messages at the lab, I would have left you one.  Apparently you didn’t see Professor Juniper yesterday.”

               The Professor turned his head to the side ever so slightly, one half of the “nuh uh” motion.  He had been fairly certain Aurea had been trying to avoid him the day before, but he hadn’t exactly sought her out either.

               Serena let out a single sharp laugh.  “Unbelievable.  Just… wow.”  She brushed a fallen strand of hair out of her face.  “We’re done here.”  She stalked past the professor and yanked open the door.

               “Serena.”

               She shot the nastiest glare she could muster at him and pushed forward into the hallway.

               “ _Serena._ ”

               “I said:  we are _done here_.”

               The Professor could only stand there dumbly as Serena hurried away.  When she disappeared from his sight, he sucked in a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.  _Merde._

* * *

 

                When Professor Juniper and Serena arrived back at the hotel that evening, they were greeted by a lavish bouquet of pink and purple flowers in a handsome vase on the desk.  Serena rolled her eyes and snorted at the display.  Knowing the sender, these probably meant something in the language of floriography, but Serena didn’t recognize the flowers and honestly didn’t care.  “Do you want the honor of throwing these in the trash, or shall I?”

                Professor Juniper plucked a small card sticking up from a plastic holder in the vase and looked it over.  “I’m not the one whose speech was ruined.”

                “Good.”  Serena picked up the vase and in one smooth motion dropped the entire ensemble into the nearby waste basket.  The arrangement was much too big for the little waste can, which left many of the blooms sticking out in a jumbled array.  It almost looked as though Serena had just upgraded the bouquet to a slightly bigger vase which also happened to be on the floor.

                “Do you want to read this?”  The Professor held out the card to Serena.  Serena pulled her mouth into a hostile grin and took the card, only to immediately drop it on top of the trashed flowers.  The Professor smirked.  “I guess that settles that.”

                Serena slipped off her suit jacket and sat on the bed.  “Is there anything mandatory that we need to go to tomorrow?”

                “We should be there for the morning’s speeches.  I’ll understand if you want to take off during the second poster session, but do try to at least see a few of them.”

                “Roger that,” Serena said as she uncoiled her hair from the tight bun it had been wound in all day.  Several minutes passed in silence as the women readied themselves for bed.

                “Serena?”

                “Yes, Professor?”

                “Relatively speaking, Professor Sycamore is… well, he’s made several large contributions to our profession, but he’s still rather new to the field.”  Serena looked at the other woman but said nothing.  “His concern over his reputation might have been lessened if he had a larger body of work behind him, but as it stands…”

                Serena, having just slid under the covers of her bed, yanked the duvet up to her shoulders and rolled over.  “I get it.  Good night, Professor.”

                The older woman flipped off the light.  “Good night, Serena.”

 

* * *

 

                The next morning passed without incident.  The morning’s presentations had been interesting enough to take Serena’s mind off of the hollow feeling in her stomach for a while, and the curly-haired traitor was nowhere to be seen.  She had jotted notes down during several of the lectures, and had plans to find the presenters later in the day to ask them a few questions.

                After the morning’s talks had concluded, Serena managed to spot Professor Elm as the crowds filtered out of the grand ballroom.  She waved him down and he greeted her with a smile.  If he had known about yesterday’s debacle, he was hiding it well.

                “Professor, do you have any plans for lunch?  I saw that you were scheduled across from my talk yesterday, and I had a few things I was hoping to pick your brain about.”

                “Ah, sure Serena!”  Professor Elm smiled and gestured toward a young man who was standing with him.  “This is one of my new research assistants, Neville.  Do you mind if the three of us eat together?”

                “Not at all!”  Serena let out a small sigh of relief and grinned at her two companions.  The last thing she wanted to do today was to be seen eating alone.

                For lunch, the three of them stopped at a small café across the street from the convention center.  Neville seemed the quiet type, letting Professor Elm and Serena do most of the talking.  He excused himself from the table shortly before the afternoon poster session was slated to begin, stating that he had to make sure things were in order with his setup.  Serena and Elm followed him back to the convention center shortly afterward, passing through the main doors right as the afternoon session began.

                “Well Serena, I’m afraid I have a meeting to attend to upstairs,” Professor Elm said as he checked his watch.  “It looks like I’m running late.”  He grinned sheepishly.

                “Oh no!  Go on ahead, Professor!  I didn’t mean to keep you!”  She shoved his arm gently to encourage him to get going.

               “Ah, they’ll wait for me.  Thank you for your company during lunch.  And think about those breeding patterns we talked about!”  He took a few steps and waved before rushing off into the crowd.

               Serena paused and looked around the atrium.  There were a few posters from lab groups she wanted to investigate, but she wanted to use the restroom before getting down to business.  There were no restroom signs to be seen anywhere in the main atrium.  Lumiosian architects had the bad habit of cramming their public restrooms in the most remote corners of their buildings – something about bathrooms not being very stylish, she figured – so Serena headed to one of the larger corridors leading away from the atrium to begin her search.  The layout of the convention center was fairly linear, so all she had to do was head straight for a ways before reaching the restrooms at the far end of the building.

               As she neared her destination, a tall figure exited the men’s bathroom and stopped.  _Oh no._   _Ooooh no._ Serena froze in place.

               “Good day to you, ma chère,” Professor Sycamore said with some trepidation.

               “And to you.”  Serena managed to take a few rigid steps forward towards the restroom.

               “I trust that you, ah… received the flowers yesterday?”  The man quickly glanced at the floor, not wanting to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds.

               “Yes, we did,” Serena admitted, stone-faced.

               “Good, good.”  The Professor wrung his hands nervously and looked up at her for a moment.  “The employee at the front desk told me everything that happened.  I am so sorry, Serena.”  His eyes flitted back down to the floor again.  “I have been nothing short of a cruel, childish brute.”

               “Yes, you have,” she stated coldly.

               “I cannot hope to receive your forgiveness on such short notice, but I want you to know that I regret what I did from the bottom of my–“ His placation was cut short by a pair of matching beeps emanating from the Professor’s pocket and Serena’s purse.  “Ah, what’s this?” the Professor said quizzically as he pulled out his Holocaster.  Serena did the same.

               Their Holocasters beeped together in unison for a few more seconds before the generic avatar for those who were not using their video capabilities flickered to life above both of their Holocasters.

               “Greetings, Lumiosans,” a male voice said coolly.  “I would like you all to know that I originally did not plan to send you this message.  But as an initial display of benevolence, I have decided to do so.”  Serena stared at her Holocaster, puzzled as she tried to place the man’s voice, while Professor Sycamore had already begun tapping several buttons to see if he could discover the origin of the call.

               “My message is this:  You have one minute to decide whether you wish to be inside Lumiose City or out.  In, or out.  That is all.”  The click of a receiver signaled the end of the transmission.

               Serena and the Professor eyed each other warily for a moment before both of them took off towards the atrium at a sprint.  Whatever this message truly meant for its recipients, it was clear enough that the intentions behind it were extremely, utterly, and very not good.


	5. Chapter 5

               Sycamore and Serena raced back to find the atrium in an uproar of confusion.  A circle of people had formed around several researchers whose discussion about what to do had escalated to a shouting match, while other attendees were simply staring at their Holocasters, unsure of what to do next.  Still others could be seen hurriedly jamming their belongings into pockets and purses while rushing towards the exits.

               “I suppose this means they got the broadcast too,” Serena panted, lungs burning from the sudden sprint.

               Professor Sycamore nodded and wheezed out an affirmative response.  “Y-... h… yes.”  He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve.  “I don’t know how they gained access to do a… forced mass broadcast like that.  Even the emergency stations… they haven’t had that capability since L-…”  The Professor cut himself off as an anxious expression swept across his face.  Serena didn’t have to ask him to finish his sentence to know to whom he was referring.

               A deafening boom cracked through the atrium with sudden explosive force.   The ground kicked up from beneath Serena’s feet and she caught a brief glimpse of the atrium’s latticed glass ceiling rippling violently.  Pain exploded on the back of her shoulders and head as she realized that she had just hit the ground, and a sharp cry to her right indicated that the Professor had suffered similar trauma.  Serena quickly curled forward to sit up, hands cradling the back of her head.  Before she could focus her vision enough to turn to check on the professor, she heard a loud groan followed by a harsh string of unintelligible Kalosian.

               “ _Merde…_ Serena… are you all right?” 

               “Yes, I think so… are you?”  Serena gingerly touched the back of her head and winced sharply.  The reactionary breath of air she sucked in was full of dust, and her body wracked itself with coughs in an effort to expel it.  She felt a warm hand settle on her back.

               The Professor had apparently hit the side of his head on the hard enough to draw blood.  He wore a look of frantic concern, the color all but drained from his face.  Serena had never seen him look so pale.  “I– I think so,” he croaked, confusion apparent in his voice.  The groans and cries of the other attendees caused them to both turn toward the atrium.

               The shockwave – or explosion, or earthquake, or whatever it was – had felled the rest of the building’s occupants as well as shaking loose some debris from the ceiling and walls.  One of the large lamps that hung from the latticework ceiling had crashed to the floor, and its surviving brethren twisted and swung wildly on the ceiling.  A woman who had been caught by the falling lamp was writhing on the floor in agony, one of the splintered wooden struts of lampshade jutting outwards in a grotesque angle from her leg.  She let out a hoarse scream when the collapsed remains of the lampshade burst into flame, the intensely hot bulb and its wood and paper covering having never been meant to meet.  Panicked cries erupted around the room.

               The Professor pushed himself to his feet and extended a hand to Serena.  She grabbed it and awkwardly pulled herself up, ears still ringing from the sound of the explosion.  She had taken a few steps towards the distressed woman when the familiar pop of a pokeball opening signaled that someone had called forth a pokemon.  A Golduck materialized by a young man who was standing a few feet away from the fire.

               “Golduck, use your water gun!” the man commanded, thrusting an arm towards the fire.  Serena had not worked closely with Golducks by any stretch of the imagination, but something about how the pokemon moved didn’t seem right.  It slunk forward a few steps before doubling back and bellowing at its master, claws poised to strike at anything that got too close.  “Golduck, _the fire_!!” the man gesticulated wildly to no avail.  The command seemed to disorient the pokemon, causing it to swing its head around wildly in an attempt to comprehend its surroundings. It pressed its hands to its head as its face contorted in an expression of confused rage.  Sensing that a great deal was amiss, Serena took a few steps careful steps backwards.  An electric whine still resonated in her ears.

               The red gem on the head of the Golduck flashed angrily for a split second before a white-hot beam of light erupted from the pokemon’s forehead.  It burned a wide, crooked swath through the plexiglass of the atrium ceiling, swooped down to street level, and then back across the ceiling to leave a U-shaped gash across the building.  The sound of groaning and snapping metal echoed throughout the hall as the destabilized part of the ceiling lurched downward towards the floor.  Serena felt a painfully forceful tug at her wrist which drew her under the body of Professor Sycamore a split second before the debris hit the ground with a sickening crack.  Her face was crushed against his chest as she and the Professor hit the ground, his body shielding her from the flying pieces of plexiglass and metal.  A strong hand wrapped around the back of her head had protected the area from further injury.

               It took a few seconds for Serena to realize she was capable of movement.  She squirmed and rolled the Professor off of her with some difficulty.  “Professor?” she squeaked.  A large I-beam from the ceiling had fallen across them.  The act of rolling the Professor to the side had freed a little less than a foot of space above Serena’s torso – the ends of the beam were being supported elsewhere – but her mind was racing too quickly to comprehend the mechanics of the situation.  Hearing no response from the man beside her, she flipped to her side and called out again.  “Professor?”  She pressed a hand to his cheek.  “…Augustine?”

               Professor Sycamore’s eyes were closed, a small rivulet of blood creeping its way from his mouth down the side of his chin.  Panicked, Serena wriggled up next to him and held his face in her hands.  “Oh god.  Oh god ohgod _ohgod_ _please don’t be dead_ ,” she pleaded as she examined his face for signs of life.  She gingerly placed her hand across his mouth and nose and let out a deep exhale of relief when she felt his breath tickle her palm.  “Okay,” she breathed.  “We can do this.  We can work with this.”

               With renewed drive, Serena twisted her head around to get a better look at her surroundings.  The beam must have hit the Professor squarely in the back but stopped before it made complete contact with the floor, otherwise both she and the Professor would have been in much worse shape.  Shimmying out from underneath the piece of fallen metal, she grabbed the unconscious man under his armpits and carefully pulled him free.  On her hands and knees, she crawled back to the pile of fallen debris and peeked over it.

               The Golduck was in obvious distress, hands still pressed against its head as it stumbled around.  _It’ll take it a few seconds to recover after using that Hyper Beam_ , Serena noted as she sunk back down behind the rubble.  She bit her lip pensively.  Why had it acted that way?  Was it scared by the explosion?  Deep in the pit of her stomach, she knew that wasn’t the answer, but she couldn’t come up with any other explanation.  She wished she could concentrate better.  The electric hum still danced in her ears.

               Reaching into her suit jacket, she pulled out the only pokeball she kept on her person at all times – the others were in her bag, which could potentially be anywhere on the floor at this point – and bounced it in her hand nervously before closing her fingers around it in a firm grip.  _I have a bad feeling about this_ , she thought as she turned to check on the Golduck again.  _But what choice do I have?_   The agitated pokemon needed to be taken out before it did any more damage.  She gritted her teeth and tossed the pokeball out beyond the pile of rubble.

               “Delphox!” she shouted as the pokemon materialized.  As if assaulted by some unseen force, Delphox immediately fell to one knee, his ears flattened against his skull.  He turned to look at Serena with an alien look in his eye.  Fear cut into her like a cold knife.

               “Delphox, I need you to listen to me!  I know there’s something wrong going on here but I need you to knock out that Golduck before it hurts anyone else!”  Delphox’s fur bristled in response, and it took him a few seconds to tear his eyes away from Serena before assessing the situation with the Golduck ahead of him.  The appearance of Delphox had drawn the attention of the Golduck away from the people surrounding it, and the water pokemon hissed and bellowed unintelligibly at the fox pokemon.

               Serena scrabbled out from behind the rubble to scoop up Delphox’s pokeball once his attention had shifted to his opponent.  His arm visibly shaking, Delphox pulled out the wooden branch that served as the focus point for his attacks and thrust it forward.  A faint purple light encircled one of the fallen girders as it groaned and drifted slowly upwards in the air.  With a flick of his wrist, Delphox brought it down on the Golduck with a loud crack.  Delphox stood still for a moment before turning to advance on his trainer, a terrifying snarl distorting his face in ways Serena had never seen.  She thrust out his pokeball defensively before her, and a beam of light shot out from the device to envelop Delphox before he could get any closer.  The light withdrew into the pokeball and Serena dropped her arm, a cold chill passing through her body.  She stared at the pokeball dumbly for a moment before turning her attention to the rest of the hall.

               The Golduck had been incapacitated with extreme prejudice.  It would probably need intensive care at a Pokemon Center if it was to fully recover.  Serena saw a bystander pick up the Golduck’s pokeball from the ground and return it to its trainer.  The young man looked blankly ahead as he held his hand out to withdraw the broken form of his pokemon from beneath the girder. The woman with the wounded leg as well as any flammable debris had been hastily moved away from the fire, which could no longer consume any more fuel to sustain its growth.  Someone in a white coat was attending to the woman’s leg.  Serena  coughed and realized that a sizeable portion of the crowd was staring at her.  She swallowed.  She couldn’t remember the last time her mouth felt this dry.

               “Everyone!  We need to remain calm!” the Champion shouted, her voice cracking.  “It’s clear that we’ve suffered some kind of attack here.  Until further notice, _do not_ – I repeat, _DO NOT_ – release your pokemon from their pokeballs at this time!”  She surveyed the room, looking for familiar faces and seeing none.  “I know some of you here are medically trained.  Do the best that you can to help the injured.  We don’t know how big this whole thing is yet – whether this symposium was the target or if this has wider implications.  Just please remain calm, and help out those who need it!”  As the rest of the attendees began to take care of themselves, Serena dashed back around to where the unconscious body of Professor Sycamore was lying.  Unsure if she should try to move him further, she sunk to her knees and brought her ear over his mouth as she watched his chest rise and fall for a few seconds.  Satisfied that his condition hadn’t worsened during her battle with the Golduck, she turned her face towards his and gently touched her fingertips to his temples.  “You better come out of this all right, you awful jerk,” Serena murmured as she planted a chaste kiss on his forehead.

               A few startled shouts rang out as a chorus of beeps filled the ruined atrium.  The remaining intact Holocasters, whether they were in someone’s hand or scattered on the floor, flickered to life with the same anonymous avatar as before.

               “Hello again, residents of Lumiose City,” a male voice purred.  The transmission, eerily echoed across the hall by dozens of Holocasters, was met with hushed silence by its listeners.  “My name is Scorpirius.  Let’s have a little chat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just so you guys know, I have a tumblr (sycamie.tumblr.com) where I post the chapters of this fic a little sooner than they end up on Ao3. And sometimes people draw me cool stuff! Bex surprised me with some AWESOME fanart which you should go check out.
> 
> http://route119.tumblr.com/post/67914298238/


	6. Chapter 6

               “By now you’re no doubt aware that something has changed in this city,” the voice over the Holocaster continued.  Serena held her borrowed Holocaster in her hand, watching it in tense silence as she knelt by the unconscious body of Professor Sycamore.

               “All routes allowing for travel to and from the city have been destroyed.  This includes the entrances to routes four, five, thirteen, fourteen, and sixteen.”  Serena’s eyes narrowed as she processed this new information.  The building they were in was butted right next to the gate for Route 14.  What kind of destruction would have had to happen at the gate for its effects to spread halfway across the sprawling new convention center?

               “In addition, those of you with pokemon as companions may have recently noticed a hostile change in behavior.  I would like to assure you that this is not a fluke, and it will remain the consequence for any pokemon allowed to remain outside its pokeball.  Under these circumstances, air travel via pokemon is, shall we say… unwise.  As for the strays … well, I suppose that makes a bit of a pest control problem, doesn’t it?”  The end of the sentence was punctuated with a dark chuckle.

               “But I suppose the question on everyone’s mind is ‘why.’  And that is indeed the question to be asking.  Three years ago, this world was on the verge of a glorious rebirth.  However, the trappings of our old, broken world coalesced to reject the change, and the status quo was maintained.”  Serena could feel her breath catch in her throat at the allusion to what seemed like a lifetime ago.

               “It seems to me that if we truly wish to create a better world, we must first capture the hearts of the people.  And that is where you come in, citizens of Lumiose City.  I would like you to think – think very hard – about your lives right now.  Are they not full of inconvenience and pain?  Do you not find yourself struggling to achieve the increasingly lofty goals set forth for you by your predecessors, while they simultaneously deny you the same advantages they so greedily keep for themselves?  Tell me, Lumiosians, do you really believe that your future is secure if things continue the way they are?

               “And so, my request for all of you is this:  Imagine a world where resources are not fought over, where we have enough to share with every being that graces this earth.  Ask yourself why this new world should not be brought to fruition.  Given time, I believe that you will come to see things as they should be.  And when you finally see through the cancerous haze that this world has shrouded us in, I want you to take to the streets.  I want you to shout and make your voices heard.  And I want you to say that _Lysandre was right_.”

               A gentle pip marked the end of the transmission, and the Holocasters across the hall simultaneously powered down.  It took Serena a moment to recognize the pain in her hands was the result of her white-knuckled grip on the Holocaster.

 

* * *

 

               Several hours later the atrium had been cleared of all but the largest debris, while the chairs in the grand ballroom had been moved to convert the room to a makeshift triage area for those injured by the explosion.  After she had seen the Professor safely moved and under the care of one of the medical volunteers, she warily left the convention center to survey the damage to the surrounding area.

               The once yawning gate to Route 14 had been reduced to a mountainous pile of rubble. Shattered glass and brick littered the street.  The gate itself had only been a story high, but the high-rise building that sat atop it had crumbled inward in the explosion, adding probably a good fifty or sixty feet of height to the pile.  The smoke from smoldering fires rose in billowing columns, and as Serena surveyed the area, she could see similar plumes of smoke rising from elsewhere in the city.

               Several dozen gawkers had come to examine the damage to the gate.  Through the crowd, the figure of a young man in blue coveralls caught her eye.  “Clemont?” she wondered aloud, and he turned his head in recognition of his name.

               “Serena!” he exclaimed in surprise.  “What are you doing here?”

               “I was in the convention center when it all happened.  I’ve been in there trying to help everyone get sorted out.”

               “Ah,” the young gym leader said, turning his head back towards the wreckage.  He had sprouted up quickly in the years since Serena had first faced him at Prism Tower, and he now stood several inches taller than her.  “I’ve been checking the damage at all the gates around the city.  This was my last stop.  They’re all like this, Serena – just impassable mounds of wreckage.”

               Serena frowned.  “Have you been able to determine how they did this?  It was a bomb, right?”

               The young man sucked in a breath through his teeth.  “I would say that’s true in the most basic sense, yeah.  But it would have taken much more finesse than just a big bomb to get these buildings to collapse in the way they did.  The pattern of destruction is just… wrong.  Do you see how it’s much more vertical than horizontal?”  Clemont gestured at the wreckage, his hand tracing a cross shape in the air.  “I’d like to get closer and get more evidence, but the police and bomb squads are spread so thin right now that they’re taking a long time to get all the areas cleared for approach.”

               Serena nodded.  “Must be hard without their pokemon.”  After the incident at Geosenge, it had taken the efforts of many people and pokemon to get the area habitable again.  Fighting-types like Machokes and Gurdurrs had cleared away most of the rubble by hand, and she remembered a particularly well-trained team of Houndours that had been dispatched to search the area for survivors.  With everyone’s pokemon incapacitated by the unknown force, they had no such luxury this time around.

               The conversation lulled as both of them stared at the rubble in uncomfortable silence.  “Serena,” Clemont said after some time.  “I have a bad feeling about this.  They wouldn’t have walled us in like this if they weren’t planning on doing something else.”  Serena nodded, her thoughts wandering to how the distribution of food and water would be affected in the days to come.

               “I think it would be best if we held a meeting in a few hours,” Clemont continued.  “In person.  No Holocasters.  I’ll make another round around the city, try to gather as many figureheads from around town as possible.  Hopefully we’ll get together a group of people that can make some sense out of all of this.”

               “Count me in.  When and where?”

               “We’ll meet at Prism Tower at seven.  That gives us a little under three hours to find as many people as possible.  You’ve been at the convention center recently – are any of the Professors still there?”

               Serena tensed slightly at the mention of professors.  “I saw Juniper, Elm, and Oak after the accident.  They were all right, just a little bruised and shaken.  I’m not sure where the others are.”  Clemont thought he saw a look of shame flash across Serena’s eyes.  “Professor Sycamore is… he’s hurt.  He tried to shield us when the ceiling collapsed, and a beam fell on him and knocked him out.”  It took Clemont a second to parse that “us” meant Sycamore and Serena, and he placed a hand gently on Serena’s shoulder.  “They say it’s probably just a mild concussion,” she quickly spat out, feeling some heat rise in her cheeks.

               “Okay.  Give him my best when he wakes up.  I’m going to go look for the others.”  Clemont gave her shoulder a reassuring pat and withdrew his hand.  “Take care of yourself now, okay?”  She nodded silently and watched him walk away.

               The subject of Professor Sycamore caused unpleasant thoughts to resurface in her mind.  No doubt he would have tried to pull her away from the falling beam regardless of what had transpired between them, but…  She shook her head.  Her time would be best doing something productive, but what, exactly?  What good was the esteemed Champion of pokemon trainers when she couldn’t even use her pokemon?  Serena sighed and kicked a stray stone on the ground.  She probably wouldn’t be missed elsewhere if she went back to check on the Professor again.

 

* * *

 

                When she reentered the grand ballroom, Serena was greeted with a flurry of hand-waving and shouts from the far corner of the room.  “He’s awake!!” one of the volunteers shouted excitedly.  Serena felt her breath catch in her throat and she tore across the room more quickly than she thought possible.  It was only when she skidded to a halt in front of Professor Sycamore, who had propped himself up against the wall with his suit jacket rolled up behind his head, that she realized she had no idea what she was going to say to him.

                He greeted her with a little hand wave and tired smile.  “Good to see you’re all right, Serena.”

                She nodded.  “Likewise, Professor.”  Why was this so awkward?

                “Meredith here tells me that you left to check outside.  What is it like out there?”

                “I met up with Clemont.  He said all the gates leading out of the city have been destroyed.  If the rest of them are anything like what Route 14 looked like, we’re basically trapped here until the rubble gets cleared.”

                “Ah.”  The Professor drew his knees up, shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, and stood up in a fluid movement.  For someone who had been through as much as he had that day, he seemed abnormally calm. 

                “Clemont is trying to gather people together who may be able to help with the situation.  Prism Tower at seven,” Serena volunteered.  “If… if you feel like coming.”

                Out of habit, the Professor swung his arm around to check the time on his wristwatch.  He let out a small, exasperated chuckle when he saw that the watch’s face was shattered.  “You wouldn’t happen to have the time now, would you?” he asked, dropping his hand to his side.

                “It’s 4:23,” piped the volunteer Serena assumed to be Meredith.

                “All right.  I had better change into something a little more presentable, then.”  The Professor tucked his jacket nearly under his arm and thrust his hands in his pockets.  He took a few steps towards the door, his demeanor still eerily subdued.

                Serena sputtered when she realized what he was doing, and reached out for his arm without another thought.  “You can’t be seriously considering walking home after all of this, can you?”

                The Professor directed his eyes skyward and pursed his lips as if in thought.  “Mm… Yes, that’s the general plan.”

                Serena came up beside him as he began walking again.  “Professor, you just woke up from a _concussion_.  What if you pass out in the street and nobody’s there to help you?  At least… at least let me make sure you make it to the meeting okay!”

                He paused and smiled briefly.  “I suppose that would make sense.”

 

* * *

 

                Their walk from the convention center on the North Boulevard to Sycamore Pokemon Lab on South Boulevard was a long one, and mostly silent.  They passed the destroyed husks of the buildings that once stood atop the gates to Routes 16 and 4. The Professor had only briefly stopped to observe the ongoing efforts to remove the more dangerous debris from the streets and to put out the small fires that were still burning.  The ball of anxiety in Serena’s stomach grew steadily more noticeable as they trudged through the streets without a word said between them.  When they arrived at the lab, the Professor fumbled in the pocket of his jacket briefly before extracting a key card and waving it over the electronic lock at the door.  Serena paused, unsure if she should follow him into the building.

                “Professor,” she said quietly, gently squeezing his forearm with her thumb and forefingers.

                “Yes, Serena?”

                “This isn’t like you.”

                He smiled a world-weary smile, the creases at the corners of his eyes suddenly making him look very old.  “It is not every day one is so aggressively haunted by ghosts.” 

Serena furrowed her brow and looked down, unsure of how to respond.  The Professor coughed and shifted his weight.  “Forgive me.  Before I get caught up in the shadows of the past, I suppose I should remember to whom I’m talking.”

                Serena clasped her hands together and shifted uncomfortably.  “I take it you heard the transmission, then.” 

               The Professor nodded in the affirmative.  “They played a recording of it for me after I came to.”

               “Professor, I…” she began, then shook her head vigorously.  “Augustine.  Lysandre was a troubled man, but I’m sure it made him no less of a good friend.  He had a vision for a better world that he desperately wanted to make a reality.  I don’t know who these pe-“

               “Serena, please.  _Not now_.”  The Professor had closed his eyes and planted his feet firmly on the ground, steeling himself against the swell of painful memories of one of his closest friends.

               “I… I’m sorry.”  She pursed her lips and inhaled, drumming her fingers against the side of her arm.  “Well, let me say this one thing, then.  I don’t know if I would have made it out of that building alive if it hadn’t been for you.  I owe you my life.”

                Augustine opened his eyes and his expression softened.  In a smooth movement, Serena rose up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against his dirt-stained cheek.  “Thank you.  _Thank you._ I mean it,” she whispered.

                For few seconds, neither of them moved.  She was about to let go when she felt his arms encircle her torso and squeeze firmly.  The man’s face slid down into the crook of her neck and she felt his body shake with a small, silent shudder, and then another, and another.  A cold wetness penetrated the collar of her blouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bex again drew some amazing art for this chapter. You can see it here!
> 
> http://route119.tumblr.com/post/68166603499/


	7. Chapter 7

               The Professor’s  living quarters were rather sparsely decorated compared to what Serena had imagined they would be like.  To be sure, there had been attempts made to spruce up the place – a few of the walls had been painted a rich burgundy and several neatly framed photos of the Professor’s friends and family adorned the walls – but Serena much preferred the lively cheer of his office, which had been accented and accessorized down to the last detail.  Every decoration in his office, from his set of magnificent oil paintings down to the cheap plastic Gogoat he kept by his pencil cup, had a story behind it.  As Serena had learned these stories during her frequent visits to the lab over the years, it became harder and harder to imagine the office without the man, and vice versa.  Now the sight of the Professor in unfamiliar surroundings, with an uncharacteristic expression of fatigue on his face, caught her by surprise in a rather unsettling way.  
  
                She eyed the kettle on the stove of the kitchenette for a brief moment before returning her gaze to the man slumped over on the couch.  “I’m going to put on some tea,” she stated matter-of-factly, giving him no way to politely refuse.  The Professor looked up and smiled wearily, recognizing he had been had.  “It’s in the cabinet over the stove.  Mugs are in the corner cabinet.”  
  
                “Good,” Serena looked rather pleased with herself and patted his shoulder.  “You ought to get changed.  If you wash up that head wound I can dress it for you.”  
  
                “Understood, capitaine,” the Professor cracked a small smile and shifted his weight forward to stand up.  The sound of running water from the bathroom a few moments later signaled that he had decided to wash up first.  
  
                Having lit the burner underneath the kettle, Serena bent over to examine the contents of the refrigerator.  Neither of them had eaten since lunch, and since she had no idea how long Clemont’s meeting was going to last, it was probably a good idea for them to at least have a snack.  She shoved a few questionable-looking takeout boxes to the side and sighed.  The man lived on carryout and café sandwiches, why would he have a well-stocked fridge?  At least that meant that very few of his dishes ever got dirtied.  She grabbed a carton of eggs and set to work finding things she could toss into an omelette.  
  
                Serena heard the water stop and turned to see Professor Sycamore wordlessly pass into his bedroom.  She frowned.  She had been no stranger to shock, especially after the Geosenge incident, but attempting to guide someone else through it was new territory.  The elevator ride up to the Professor’s private apartment at the top of his lab had been a quiet one, and her mother’s words had come back to her in the silence.  You just have to keep moving, sweetie.  Put one foot ahead of the other and keep going.  The world isn’t going to stop and neither should you.  Mom had been right on that account – after Geosenge, Serena had wanted nothing more than to hole up somewhere for a month while she could process what had happened.  But no sooner had she been admitted to the hospital after being pulled from the rubble, the reporters and well-wishers had begun lining up to get their words of condolence in before going on their way.  Her world had been frozen at Geosenge, and the fact that the rest of the planet had carried on with hardly a pause seemed unnecessarily cruel.  It had taken months for her mind to creep back up to speed, long after she had resumed the motions of a normal life.  She wondered if Augustine felt as she had, an immovable stone in a river of time.  She wondered if making eggs for him right now really mattered, all things considered.  
  
                Having donned one of his usual purple shirts and a crisp pair of new slacks, Augustine returned to the living room to find the Champion flipping an omelette.  He blinked, surprised.  “Serena, you didn’t tell me you were going to make a meal out of this.”  
  
                She turned from the stove and shot a little smirk at him.  “Calling this a ‘meal’ would be incredibly generous.  You have a terrible selection of ingredients.”  After doing a bit of reconnaissance around his kitchen to figure out where the essentials were, she had chopped up an onion and selected the contents of one of the Professor’s less suspicious-looking takeout boxes to use in the omelettes.  “Could do with a bit of cheese,” she added.  
  
                He chuckled quietly and walked over to inspect the dish as she plated it.  “Désolé, Serena.  I suppose I really am a bachelor, through-and-through.”  The rich tenor of his voice originated strangely close to her ear.  
  
                Plate in hand, Serena spun around to hand it to the Professor and was met with a surprised “oof!”  She was startled to find him standing very close to her, and that she had jammed the plate rather forcefully into the Professor’s stomach.  The impact knocked the dish from her grasp and sent the product of her labors hurtling towards the floor.  Both parties dove for the falling plate, only for their skulls to crack painfully against each other as it crashed to the ground.  Serena reeled back, hand pressed against her forehead.  
  
               “Oh my god, Professor, I… I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be there!  Are you okay?”  
  
               He laughed a breathy laugh, surveying the broken dish on the ground.  “Yes, I’m fine.”  He quickly bent over to pick up a larger fragment of the once-whole plate.  “It looks I’m going to have one less place setting, though.”  
  
               Sliding a hand over her face, Serena let out an exasperated sigh through her fingers.  “Today isn’t really our day, isn’t it?”  She gingerly took a step back and bent down to assist the Professor in picking up the pieces.   
  
               A sly grin played across his lips.  “It certainly seems as though whatever forces are conspiring against us are dead set at landing us in the head trauma ward.”  
  
               Serena chuckled and shook her head, scooping up the remains of the ill-fated meal in her hands.  “I can see the headlines now.  ‘Pokemon Professor and Kalos Champion found dead in apartment.  Cause of death:  fallen omelette.”  
  
               The proposed scenario was met with a hearty laugh from the Professor.  “Hold on, I’ll grab a dustpan.”  Serena watched him rush over to the linen closet with a smile.  Well, at least I’ve got him laughing a bit, she mused to herself as she picked up a few more pieces.  She had been secretly hoping to impress him with the resourcefulness of her cooking – years of training on the road meant that you had to learn to improvise a bit – but she was willing to be happy about anything that snapped the Professor out of the haze he had been in for most of the day.  
  
               A few minutes later, the kitchen floor had been cleared of debris and the two had situated themselves on the Professor’s sofa with mugs of tea in hand.  Serena drained the last of hers and turned to face him.  “Professor, we better dress that head wound of yours.  Y’know, before I give you any more,” she added with a bashful smile.  
  
               He picked up the small first aid kit that had been placed on the table previously and held it out to her.  “Be my guest,” he invited, eyebrows drawn up in a cheeky expression.   
  
               Serena pulled a few items out of the kit and went to work on the Professor’s temple, applying some antibiotic ointment before taping some gauze over the wound.  She ran her thumb over the ends of the freshly applied medical tape once more before dropping her hand to her side.  “There you are.  Not exactly good as new, but you’ll live.”  
  
               “Thank you, Serena.” He rested his hand on top of hers for a moment before giving it a reassuring squeeze.  “For everything.”  
  
               “No problem, Professor.”  
  
               “…Augustine,” he corrected.  
  
               Serena let out an exasperated little sigh and nodded.  “…Augustine.  Sorry.  Old habits die hard.”  A nervous tension lit up in her stomach.  
  
               The man smiled and raised his arms up in a towering stretch before settling them along the back of the sofa.  He brought his heels up to rest on the surface of the small coffee table – rather rude, thought Serena, but it was his furniture – and looked at the woman beside him thoughtfully.  “So… what now?”  
  
               Serena took a moment to respond.  Keeping her gaze directed straight forward, she realized that she had balled up her hands into fists and was pressing them into her lap with no small amount of force.  The feeling in her stomach niggled at her.  
  
               “Augustine, I’m not really sure how to say this.”  She sucked in a small breath and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.  “I respect you immensely.  Considering all that’s happened in the past few days, and what’s probably going to happening in the future…  I think we had better be perfectly candid with each other.”  
  
               Augustine leaned forward a bit, an expression of concern crossing his face.  “What do you mean?”  
  
               “Well… um…  I mean to say… What with today’s events and all… can we just… act like the past few days didn’t happen?” Serena practically choked on the words as they came out, not at all conveying what she had really meant to say.  
  
               Augustine’s face fell a little bit.  He nodded slowly in agreement and cast his eyes up towards the ceiling.  “…I suppose agreeing to forget that unpleasantness would be for the best.”  
  
               Serena swallowed hard and wondered if there was any way she could possibly make the situation more awkward than it was.  Too late now.  You might as well say it.  
  
               “Your apology was fine.  In case you were wondering, I mean.  I shouldn’t have been so vindictive about it this morning.  I… I think what really upset me was… well, I think it was that you would be so angry about rumors about us going around.  It was just going to be dinner, but the way you sounded made it seem like the worst possible thing that could happen to you, like the very idea repulsed you.  Y’know, the idea of you and I being…” Serena’s face felt hot enough to fry an egg on.  Hell, maybe she could replace that omelette she ruined.  The Professor had fixed his gaze on her, eyebrows slightly furrowed in a look of great concentration.  “…being together,” she finished, desperately wishing she had one of her trusty hats to pull down over her face.  
  
                Augustine broke eye contact with Serena and wordlessly sunk back into the couch.  The following seconds of silence felt like an eternity.  She cleared her throat and looked upward, feeling the heat and embarrassment in her face collecting just under her eyes.  “I’m sorry.  I’m out of line.  I bet you get this all the time.  It must be tiring.”  
  
               She felt a warm hand slide up her arm to the crook of her elbow, where his fingers encircled her arm gently.  His other hand settled on her far arm, gently tugging her to face him.  His face was still masked with the same intense expression as before. “Serena,” he breathed, voice low.  “Serena, do not think for a moment…”  He cast his eyes downward and trailed off.  His next words were barely audible, as if they were some quietly penitent prayer.  “Mon Dieu, pardonne-moi.”   
  
               He pressed his lips against hers, and hoped.


End file.
